Month: March 2006

I’m listening, observing, analyzing, and realizing. Sometimes you really can achieve a lot if you just shut your mouth. 🙂

No I’m not talking about a gaming company. I’m talking about a type of game that can be played in many different ways. For example, within one game you could have both FPS and RTS aspects to in the same game. If you want to see a good example of this check out the Spore gameplay video which is an up and coming game by Will Wright. Pretty amazing stuff. This is exactly what I’d like to see in next generation games but taken even to the next level.

You see in reading this post on Addicting Entertainment about Passive Web Gaming, I realized this idea fits perfectly in with this hydra game concept. For example, imagine a massively multiplayer game that basically had different gameplay aspects to it so you could interact with the game in different ways. I mean I’ve always thought it strange for example that the World of Warcraft doesn’t have a web aspect to it where you can manage your guild from there and see who’s online without actually having to enter the game. Imagine if this web aspect to your WoW guild was a sort of metagame in itself though. You could theoretically play the game from anywhere and whenever you feel you had the time, just as the Addicting Entertainment article indicated.

This would be very nice to see, as it would open up online gaming to a whole different audience of people. Even more so, it would allow friends to play collectively in the same game but in each their own preferred play style.

Wow, another interesting morning. I started pondering communities again wondering how people can work together on common goals online. Of course, as usual, I started going off in a typical direction in which I over complicated things. Luckily I realized this and knew I had to take a step back and start from scratch with the basics. So I started thinking about communities in the real world, like the one that I live within currently and I started examining how people interact within it. Interestingly enough, I came up with more questions than answers. But that’s ok though because these questions are definitely taking me much closer to the answers that I’m looking for.

People Within Communities

What defines a person in a community in real life? Conversations? Interactions? Commitment? That person is usually in one place having a conversation there (i.e. their place of work) but they may walk around the community and talk to others as well. Therefore, that person is engage in conversations not just in one location but many different ones. They probably do spend most of their time in one location though (i.e. work) but may “bump” into people elsewhere as they walk through the community (i.e. running errands, etc).

For example, a person usually works at one location but relax somewhere else for lunch to get away from their work environment. In addition, each location may be in a different environment and thus may have different social guidelines for it. The person may be polite within their work environment but rowdy at the local tavern where they each lunch with their friends.

Initiating Conversations

Another thing I wondered is how are conversations initiated in the first place? For example, I might see you talking to a shop owner in their store and get a “feeling” of your personality and character before I even meet you. Is this enough to engage you though, to join the conversation as well? I think most people hold back from joining conversations because they don’t have enough of a “feel” of the person to feel comfortable enough to engage them. Thinking about this, I wondered am I opening up with myself enough on my site for people to get a “feeling” about me, so that they can feel comfortable enough to engage in a conversation with me. Funnily enough, after writing the following questions down I realized that no people probably can’t get a good feeling of me from my site.

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• What do you care about?
• What is meaningful to you?
• What do you look like?
• What are your mannerisms?
• What do you sound like?

What’s really funny is that in real life, if I was standing next to you in a shop, I could probably assess most of these things within less than a minute of listening to a conversation that you were in.

Anyways back to these locations within the community and people interacting within it. Basically what I realized is that a person interacts in different ways within the community. Everyone within the community contributes to it in different ways and in different areas / locations of it. But how do you define or determine if you’re actually contributing to it? Does your interaction help others in the community in some way? By answering a simple question posed by someone are you in effect helping the community (i.e. those around you within it)?

Being Part of a Community

I think started asking myself what communities am I a part of online? What do I do that makes me feel like I’m a part of them? Do I just care about them? Or do I actually contribute to them in some way? If so, how? In what way? Am I committed to others in an ongoing relationship within this community?

For example, I feel like I want to be a part of something larger that has meaning and purpose but what am I doing about it? Am I committed in this relationship with that larger purpose? What I’m getting at here is it sounds like to me that most people basically want “instant gratification” without doing anything for it. It would be like a person saying a marathon race was grueling, yet they rode it in a car while everyone else ran it. You can’t truly experience the feelings of being a part of something unless you are truly engage within it and committed to it. Thus we need to ask ourselves, are we committed to working at this larger purpose and the relationships with others that exist within it?

Finally, a few more startling questions arose which I’ll leave hanging to ponder over the upcoming weekend (as I’m going to take a little bit of time off). So how do we commit to a community then? How do we join one? More importantly, when do we feel accepted and a part of this community? At what point do we feel like we are connected to something larger than ourselves and that we are truly starting down the path of working collaboratively on something that is larger than ourselves.

UPDATE: Are our work environments communities? If so, how do they compare? If not, how do they differ? What’s missing from them?

It’s funny but I was thinking back to my idea of connected communities again. That being a collection of smaller communities that all work together on a larger common (and usually global) goal. What’s funny is that I realized that these communities actually exist today (more or less). Where are they? Right in front of you. Actually to make this really apparent, think about some of the more popular blogs on the web right now.

For example, think about Scripting News, Boing Boing, or Buzz Machine. What do these site’s do? Primarily they relay news and information of interest to them. But think about how these sites operate and interact with others, especially when something really important is happening in the world. These sites:

• relay what is happening
• relay which people are doing something about it
• relay the results of what these people are doing

For example, during the Katrina disaster these sites relayed information that made people aware of what was going on, which people were taking action, and also what was the results of that action. In effect, this is a simple yet perfect feedback system for an ecosystem. Those a part of this system help protect it, not by giving orders to others, but instead by making others aware of what is going on within the system. This is called situational awareness.

Awareness

Basically an event occurs and it is relayed to others so that they can be aware of it as well and thus do what they feel is necessary to protect the entire system. In effect, everyone works independently choosing their own means of support but they are all still working towards a common collective goal (i.e. protect the system). The best part of why this works so well is that everyone can contribute in their own way, no matter how small of the contribution, yet the overall collective effect of these small contributions is one large one. Thus everyone feels like they are contributing to something large and meaningful, even if their contribution is just a small one.

Yet in thinking about this I realized that something was missing. One important element. Why? Well as everyone knows, we’re overloaded with information today. Thus if you created a system like this and relayed every minute little detail, people would be overloaded by the flow of information. Something, therefore, is needed to make this system work efficiently so that people don’t get overloaded by a deluge of information. What is it? Meaning.

Meaning

Strong communities are formed when relationships are created between people who have a shared interest in something that is meaningful to each one of them. Meaning is therefore what binds these communities. It is what they are all about. Thus when information flows around this communities, often the information that flows the quickest through it is information that has the most direct meaning to the community. For example, if a lady in a neighborhood community told her friend she saw a dog in the woods nearby the other day then no big deal. If however she said she saw a wolf then this information would spread rapidly throughout the community because this means more to the community (as everyone is concerned with the safety of others within it).

The same thing happens online. You’ll have a site talking about this and that, day in and day out but then one day something happens in the world and the site relays something meaningful to the entire community around it. Immediately this information is relayed to other neighboring communities so that they can be made of aware of it as well, as it may hold meaning for them. In effect, this is what connected communities is about. And in realizing this, I think I’m coming to one very startling conclusion. Technology is not the foundation of these connected communities but people are instead.

People

Don’t get me wrong. Technology is an extremely useful method of relaying this awareness much faster than we could of before but it is still people at its foundation that truly make this work. If anything, I’m noticing that the leaders of tomorrow will not be those who give the orders the best but those who instead help others by making them aware of more meaningful and relative information. In effect, these leaders are like some of the more popular websites on the web today. They are like a hub, relaying meaningful information from others to others so that everyone around them is more aware of what truly matters to them which in turn allows these people to live and work more effectively and enjoyably.

I just realized that if I start taking this “things will happen” approach instead of the typical “very unlikely to happen” approach then it is safe to assume that I will once again probably put this journal into limbo in the future. In realizing this, I have to ask myself is this really a bad thing? If not, then how can I prepare for this the next time it happens?

With regards to is it a bad idea, I don’t think so. I mean think about it. Sleep is a necessary part of our life. It allows us to recharge our batteries, otherwise we’d drop dead from exhaustion. The same goes with mental labour though. It’s been proven in studies that giving yourself a break from your work allows the information you’ve absorbed a chance to “digest” inside of you. Or to put it another way, it gives you a chance to step back from what you’re doing and look at things from a different perspective. That, more than anything, is usually what happens with me when I “close up shop” on my site for a while. I come back feeling really refreshed with a lot of great ideas.

So now if there is nothing wrong with taking a break then how do you prepare for it? I’ve seen some bloggers bring in guest bloggers to fill in when they’re away. Well, I don’t really see my site as a “broadcast” that needs to keep going uninterrupted. Hehe, actually if you want to compare it to television, think about how a television season works? You have a period where new shows are aired over a period of time but then there is an off season as well. Depending upon the show, this off season includes either nothing or will actually consist of reruns of previously aired shows.

So is that the idea then? When I “sign off”, do I give a good explanation of why I’m taking a break, summarizing a lot of points that are frustrating me and I need time to think about? Or maybe I could even create a bunch of posts (one a week) ahead of time that basically recap certain things I’ve talked about in the past, so they help fill in this break. I mean if you think about it, a lot of times that’s really what you’re doing the most on a journal anyways. You’re just repeating things in different ways to emphasize something. Anyways I guess I’ll just have to do a bit of thinking about this the next time I think about taking a break from the site.

If we really want to start innovating with fresh new ideas, then we need to start playing and experimenting with things. Of course, when this happens, mistakes occur. Don’t assume they won’t, know that they will. Actually every morning, when you wake up, think to yourself “I’m going to make a mistake today.” Accept it. Hell, actually look forward to it! Why? Because with that mistake will come the knowledge and understanding of something that you may not have been aware of before.

Don’t be afraid to play and get dirty. That’s where the hidden treasures are usually found, way deep down in the dirt. 🙂

In my last post, I mentioned that you need to be open to accepting inspiration from unlikely places (in that case from feedback). I think this mirrors my thoughts a while back when I said that doing at least one thing differently daily will help you see the world through different eyes which in turn can lead to new ideas and inspiration as well. Back then, I was talking about my discovery of permaculture. Today I’m talking about a book that I discovered by chance that basically confirms a lot of the thoughts that I’ve been having over the past few years.

Why I’m saying this happened by chance is that there’s a local community paper that I read basically once in a blue moon. Luckily I happened to glance at one of the captions on the cover the other day and I noticed a mention of Margaret J. Wheatley who wrote a book called Turning To One Another that I had read some years back. So interested in what she was up to now, I decided to grab the paper so I could read it later. Well in reading the article on her later that day, I basically sat there with my jaw dropping down the floor in amazement, as everything my intuition had been hinting at over the past few years was basically confirmed in a couple of pages of that single article.

What this article was entitled was Community: The Promise and Paradox which relates to her latest book entitled Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time. Of course, I immediately called the local bookstore near my place and asked if they had it. They did and so I grabbed it, returned home, and immediately started reading it. However, instead of starting from the front of the book, I skimmed the table of contents at the front and found a chapter entitled The Real Work of Knowledge Management. Again in that single chapter, almost everything I had been thinking and feeling about over the past few years was confirmed and even more so clarified for me.

To sum up, if you are interested in the Web (yes this includes Web 2.0 as well), organization, structure, knowledge, relationships, communities, culture, or anything along those lines, I’d highly recommend you read this book. Here’s one quote from it below that really stood out for me and mirrored my thoughts on what the culture of the Web would be like if it were a business (that being the dream “business” that we’d all like to work for).

It Is Natural for People to Create and Share Knowledge
We have forgotten many important truths about human motivation. Study after study confirms that people are motivated by work that provides growth, recognition, meaning, and good relationships. We want our lives to mean something; we want to contribute to others; we want to learn; we want to be together. And we need to be involved in decisions that affect us. If we believed these studies and created organizations that embodied them, then work would be far more productive and enjoyable. We would discover that people can be filled with positive energy. Organizations would be overwhelmed by new knowledge, innovative solutions, and great teamwork. It is essential that we begin to realize that human nature is the blessing, not the problem. As a species, we are actually very good to work with.

Other Recommended Books: